Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial to drive organic traffic to your website, get customers from Google, and overall, boost your online visibility.

However, failing to adhere to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines can result in severe search engine penalties, which can negatively impact your website traffic.

If your site traffic and visibility have recently plummeted, you’ve likely been hit with an SEO penalty.

While this is not a nice discovery, the real question is, how do you remove an SEO penalty?

Good news, you’re in the right place.

Why SEO Penalties Happen

An SEO penalty is a punitive measure taken by Google against websites that don’t provide high-quality content, backlinks, and a positive user experience. These penalties can range from a drop in site rankings to a complete de-indexing from Google’s search results.

In more direct words, if you’re sneaky with SEO, Google will f*ck you up.

Now you’re probably wondering, what can make Google give me a penalty?

Some common reasons for SEO penalties include:

1. Unnatural links
2. Duplicate content issues
3. Thin or low-quality content
4. Cloaking or deceiving search engines
5. Keyword stuffing or over optimization
6. Technical errors or violations of Google’s guidelines
7. Schemy building practices (e.g., buying links, participating in link schemes) which can lead to manual penalties when a human reviewer determines a site is violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

If you’ve done any of this, then you may be penalized by Google.

Types of SEO Penalties

Understanding Google penalty itself is essential in identifying the type of penalty—be it manual or algorithmic—and implementing the right strategies to recover your site’s rankings and traffic.

Google imposes two major penalties:

• Manual actions
• Algorithmic penalties

Manual Actions

Also known as a manual penalty, this happens when Google manually reviews your website and discovers that you’ve violated their guidelines. A manual penalty often results from user spam reports or Google’s own quality checks. However, most times, manual penalties come from black hat SEO techniques.

Algorithmic Penalties

An algorithmic penalty is automatically applied by Google’s search engine algorithms when they detect activities that go against their guidelines. Algorithmic penalties can be triggered by updates like Google Panda (targeting thin content) and Google Penguin (targeting unnatural link building or bad links).

Let’s explain both.

Google Panda Algorithmic penalty

The Google Panda algorithm was introduced back in 2011 with the primary goal of identifying and penalizing websites with thin or low-value content. The algorithm assesses the quality of a website’s content based on factors like:

• Overall user experience
• Quality of the site design
• Substance and value of the content
• User engagement metrics (bounce rate, time on site, etc)
• Content quality compared to other pages in the search results

Any site owner that fails to meet the standards of the Google Panda update will suffer significant drops in search traffic. This update was made to ensure site owners provide unique, informative, and engaging content with actual value.

Penguin Penalty

Engaging in sketchy link acquisition? Then your website may violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. The Penguin penalty, which was a Google update in 2012 — specifically targets websites doing unnatural link building practices.

Specific practices that can trigger the Penguin penalty include:

• Acquiring links from low-quality or irrelevant websites
• Excessive use of exact-match anchor text in backlinks
• Participating in link farms, link networks, or link exchanges
• Buying or selling links for the sole purpose of manipulating SERPs
• Using automated programs or services to build large quantities of low-quality links

Websites hit by the Penguin penalty will experience a significant drop in search rankings. This happens because Google devalues the spammy links pointing to the site.

To avoid this penalty, build a natural, diverse, and high-quality backlink profile through ethical means.

How to Know if Your Website Has an SEO Penalty

Here are a few telltale signs that your website has been hit with a manual or algorithmic penalty:

• Penalty notifications
• Manual action notification in Google Search Console
• Sudden drop in rankings, search quality, and web traffic
• Significant decrease in crawl rates or indexed pages in Google Search Console

Google Penalty Removal: How to Fix an SEO Penalty

If your website has been hit with a penalty, you should act quickly to recover your organic traffic. There are two major ways to remove an SEO penalty:

1. Fixing the penalty by yourself

2. Opting for SEO penalty removal services

Fixing SEO Penalty By Yourself:

Though time consuming, if you prefer to handle the penalty yourself, here’s what to do:

• Identify the root cause of the Google penalties by thoroughly analyzing your website and backlink profile. You can do this by using Google webmaster tools like Search Console tool or Google Analytics.
• For Google penguin recovery, conduct a thorough link audit to identify and remove harmful backlinks.
• Improve your website’s content quality to meet Google’s standards.
• Ensure your website is mobile-friendly and has a fast loading speed.
• Fix any technical SEO issues, such as broken links or duplicate content.
• After addressing the issues, submit a penalty reconsideration request to Google explaining the actions you’ve taken and providing evidence of your efforts.
• Monitor your search rankings and traffic closely and continue optimizing your website based on Google’s guidelines.

Using an SEO Penalty Removal Service

If you lack the expertise or resources to handle the SEO penalty removal process yourself, you should seek a reputable SEO penalty removal service. A detailed google penalty recovery service will help you identify and resolve any existing SEO penalties.

Such services may include, but not limited to:

• Penalty recovery plan
• In-depth analysis of your website
• A thorough audit of your existing backlinks
• Link removal and disavow file management
• Reconsideration request preparation and submission
• Ongoing SEO services to maintain penalty-free status

While working with a SEO penalty removal agency can be more expensive, it will save you time and ensure a more effective recovery process, especially for complex or severe penalties.

Inscribe: SEO Penalty Removal Agency

If you’re in need of professional assistance with SEO penalty removal, you should hire the Inscribe Agency, known for its expertise in google penalty removal services.

We’re a reputable SEO penalty removal company that specializes in removing SEO penalties, and many website owners trust us.

Whether you have a manual penalty or algorithmic one, we start with a free consultation to better understand your current state.

Our services also include comprehensive SEO audits to identify and address other issues that may be affecting your site’s performance. We have a proven track record of successful penalty recoveries, transparent processes, and ongoing support to help you regain your search rankings and drive more traffic to your website.

By following the recommended steps above, you can remove Google penalties, start generating traffic, rank higher, and improve search visibility.

How to Avoid SEO Penalties

Now if you’ve figured out your SEO penalty and perhaps corrected it, the question is, how do you avoid SEO penalties?

The best way to avoid SEO penalties is to follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and focus on creating high-quality content. Build a strong and natural backlink profile, and also provide a good user experience on your website. Also, be on the lookout for other Google updates.

Here are other tips to help you stay penalty-free:

• Conduct a regular SEO audit of your website for technical issues, duplicate content, or crawlability problems.
  You can do this with your Google Search Console or other SEO tips.
• Produce informative and engaging content that provides actual value to your users.
• Get high quality links.
  You can do this naturally through outreach, content marketing, and other white-hat techniques. Never engage in black-hat methods.
• Monitor your link profile and disavow any spammy or low-quality links.
• Focus on content quality to ensure your content meets user needs and search engine standards.
• Stay up-to-date with every Google’s algorithm change and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly.

Once you adhere to these rules and stay updated regularly, your site traffic will rise and your business will grow.

Remember: Google imposes these penalties to maintain the integrity of its search engine and ensure that users receive the best search results. So when you’re creating content or getting backlinks, have this in mind.

And if you want to take prompt action to recover your search engine rankings, use our SEO removal penalty service.